Virginia School Counselor
Virginia school counselors serve students from pre-K through 12th grade. The state projects about 740 openings a year from 2024 to 2034, and the May 2025 median wage is $67,660. The Virginia Board of Education requires a master’s from a state-approved school counselor preparation program, supervised fieldwork at both elementary and secondary levels, and two years of qualifying experience.
Virginia Links
Virginia has the 10th-largest workforce in this occupation group in the country (May 2025), with openings in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and the smaller cities of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia. State law is also unusually specific about how counselors spend their day. Here’s what the job looks like, what it pays, how much hiring to expect, and where you can train.
What School Counselors Do in Virginia
A high school senior in Fairfax County is applying to seven schools, hasn’t started her essays, and can’t decide between nursing and public health. Her school counselor has met with her three times this semester: once to build a college list, once to work through financial aid, and once to talk about the anxiety that’s making it hard to focus in class. That’s a pretty typical stretch of the job.
Most of that work is direct. Virginia requires public school counselors to spend the large majority of their time with students rather than on planning and paperwork (the box further down explains the rule). In practice, that means classroom lessons, one-on-one sessions, small groups, crisis response, and a lot of conversations with teachers and parents about specific kids.
At the elementary level, a counselor might teach a conflict resolution lesson to third graders, check in with a second grader whose family situation just changed, and talk with a teacher about a student who’s struggling to make friends. In middle school, the focus shifts toward academic planning and peer dynamics. Virginia students start an Academic and Career Plan in seventh grade, and counselors usually guide that process, so it’s often the first real conversation about high school courses and what comes after.
By high school, the plan becomes the backbone of the job: course selection, graduation requirements, college and career applications, and the steady stream of students who need someone to talk to. The American School Counselor Association’s ASCA National Model is the framework many counselors use to organize that work and measure whether it’s helping students.
The emotional load is real. Counselors absorb family crises, mental health emergencies, and academic pressure, often for hundreds of students at once. The Virginia School Counselor Association is a good place to find professional development and other counselors who’ve worked through the same Virginia-specific questions you’ll face.
Job Outlook in Virginia
Virginia projects about 740 openings a year from 2024 to 2034 for Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors (SOC 21-1012), the occupation group that includes school counselors. Most of those openings come from counselors retiring or leaving the field, not from new positions. That’s still a steady hiring flow for a state this size.
Employment in the group is projected to grow 10.6% in Virginia from 2024 to 2034, compared with 3.5% nationally. Growth like that depends on division budgets and enrollment, so treat it as a projection rather than a promise.
Source: Projections Central, Long-Term Occupational Projections, 2024-2034 (state and U.S. figures from the same projection round).
Hiring follows population. The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro area, which takes in Northern Virginia along with D.C. and parts of Maryland and West Virginia, employed about 7,260 people in this occupation as of May 2025. Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk (1,830) and Richmond (1,480) are the next largest markets. Smaller metros like Charlottesville, Roanoke, and the New River Valley hire too, just in smaller numbers.
School Counselor Salary in Virginia
Virginia’s median wage for Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors was $67,660 in May 2025, about $3,330 above the national median of $64,330. That BLS group includes career counselors and academic advisors as well as school counselors, so treat these figures as a close guide rather than a school-only number. About 9,450 people worked in the occupation in Virginia that year.
| Percentile | Annual Salary (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| 10th | $45,700 |
| 25th | $55,880 |
| Median (50th) | $67,660 |
| 75th | $83,440 |
| 90th | $103,380 |
Location makes a real difference. The Washington metro’s median runs nearly $10,000 above the state figure, while the smaller metros in western Virginia sit below it.
| Metro Area | Median Salary (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | $77,420 |
| Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC | $69,840 |
| Richmond, VA | $67,620 |
| Charlottesville, VA | $63,330 |
| Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford, VA | $61,580 |
| Roanoke, VA | $61,270 |
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state estimates (Virginia) and May 2025 metropolitan area estimates, SOC 21-1012.
Each division sets pay inside a public school, not these medians. Several Virginia divisions list counselor jobs on the teacher salary scale, with 200-day contracts or more and a stipend for a graduate degree. When you compare offers, look at the scale, your step on it and the contract length, not just the starting figure.
Virginia law protects counselors’ time with students
Since 2019, the Code of Virginia (§ 22.1-291.1:1) has required every public school counselor to spend at least 80 percent of their time during school hours on direct counseling. The current text, last amended in 2023, spells out what counts: classroom lessons, individual and small-group counseling, crisis counseling, appraisal and advisement, and consultation and referrals. Program planning and school support are capped at 20 percent, so the job you’re training for is mostly time with students.
CACREP-Accredited School Counseling Programs in Virginia
Fourteen Virginia universities offer a CACREP-accredited school counseling master’s. The table lists 13 institutions using 2023 IPEDS completion counts for CIP 13.1101 (Counselor Education/School Counseling and Guidance Services), which measures size, not quality. These institution-level figures are not necessarily counts of graduates from the specific CACREP-accredited master’s programs shown.
CACREP accreditation identifies programs that meet national counseling education standards, but it doesn’t by itself make you eligible for a Virginia school counselor license. Under the Virginia Board of Education’s endorsement regulation (8VAC20-23-670), you’ll need a master’s from a state-approved school counselor preparation program that includes at least 100 practicum and internship hours in preK-6 and 100 in grades 7-12, plus two years of full-time teaching or school counseling experience. Two years of school counseling under a nonrenewable Provisional License can meet that experience requirement, so you don’t have to teach first. Confirm a program is state-approved before you enroll, and see Virginia school counselor certification for the full process.
| Institution | City | Degree | Accredited Through | Master’s Graduates (2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberty University | Lynchburg | M.Ed. | March 31, 2032 | 426 |
| College of William and Mary | Williamsburg | M.Ed. | October 31, 2032 | 96 |
| Regent University | Virginia Beach | M.A. | October 31, 2032 | 69 |
| George Mason University | Fairfax | M.Ed. | March 31, 2031 | 55 |
| Old Dominion University | Norfolk | M.S.Ed. | March 31, 2028 | 49 |
| Virginia Commonwealth University | Richmond | M.Ed. | April 30, 2034 | 36 |
| James Madison University | Harrisonburg | M.Ed. | March 31, 2028 | 35 |
| Radford University | Radford | M.S. | March 31, 2028 | 33 |
| University of Virginia | Charlottesville | M.Ed. | October 31, 2028 | 26 |
| Longwood University | Farmville | M.S. | March 31, 2028 | 19 |
| Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | Blacksburg | M.A. | March 31, 2032 | 15 |
| University of Lynchburg | Lynchburg | M.Ed. | October 31, 2031 | 5 |
| Bluefield University | Bluefield | M.A. | March 31, 2032 | 3 |
Norfolk State University in Norfolk is also CACREP-accredited, through October 31, 2033. It does not report graduates under the federal code used here, so it is listed separately rather than placed in the size order.
Three programs carry a qualified CACREP status. James Madison University and Old Dominion University are listed as Accredited (Reaffirmation in Process), with current cycles running through March 31, 2028. College of William and Mary is listed as Accredited (Progress Report Required), through October 31, 2032.
If you’re looking at William & Mary, note that the university says its on-campus school counseling track is not accepting applications for the 2026-27 admission cycle. Its online track is the route open to new students in that cycle.
How this table was built. Every program here is accredited by CACREP as a School Counseling program, verified against the CACREP register on September 30, 2026. Any program whose CACREP status shows a teach-out, closure, show-cause or withdrawal is excluded, because a reader cannot reliably enroll in it. Programs are ordered by the number of master’s graduates each university reported to the federal IPEDS survey for 2023 under CIP code 13.1101, which measures size, not quality. That count covers the whole university, so a school running more than one school counseling master’s reports them together, and a low count can mean some graduates are reported under a different code. Treat the order as a rough guide to size rather than a ranking. Where a university reports no graduates under that code we name it below the table rather than place it in the order. CACREP accreditation is not the same as state approval: check the Virginia requirements for school counselor certification before you enroll.
- Steady hiring: Virginia projects about 740 openings a year from 2024 to 2034, mostly from counselors retiring or leaving the field.
- Pay above the national median: The May 2025 median for the occupation group was $67,660 in Virginia, against $64,330 nationally, with the Washington metro at $77,420.
- A job built around students: State law requires at least 80 percent of a public school counselor’s time to go to direct counseling.
- More than a degree: The Virginia Board of Education also requires a state-approved preparation program, fieldwork at both levels, and two years of teaching or school counseling experience.
- Fourteen accredited programs: Virginia has 14 CACREP-accredited school counseling master’s programs, but CACREP accreditation alone doesn’t establish license eligibility.
Found a few programs worth a closer look? Here’s the full path from a master’s degree to your first Virginia school counseling license.
